The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, home of the Lakota Sioux, is ground zero for Native American Issues. Best known to most Americans as the site of the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre, where some 300 men, women and children were slaughtered by US soldiers, today Pine Ridge is one of the poorest counties in America. The life expectancy of men is 47-years–the same as for men in Afghanistan and Somalia. The unemployment levels on the reservation are about 90%. Most people are living on just $3,000 a year.

For the past six years, photographer Aaron Huey has trained his camera on these problems. But, he says, it took him five years to understand what the real story was. “When I first went to Pine Ridge,” says Huey, “the focus was on getting pictures of gangs, superficial violence, drugs and extreme circumstances.” It wasn’t until he was asked to present a TED talk that he pieced together the history–For the first time he saw the reality–how the land was stolen from the Lakota through a series of massacres disguised as battles, and the broken treaties that followed. “It was,” says Huey, “a calculated and systematic destruction of a people.”

“I want to shift people’s attention to outlets for action,” says Huey explaining that the posters direct potential donors to grass roots Native organizations, as well information on standing treaties between tribes and the US government, and details about broken treaties. To print posters and rent space on billboards, Huey is looking to raise $30,000 through crowd funding site Emphas.is.

THE BEST DREAM FACTORIES WILL WIN

I have begun to “crowdsource” the on campus book storage. This, of course, will not allow me the grace of serendipity, but it will keep treasured older volumes near at hand. I’m having visions of the Borges short story, The Library of Babel, overlayed with Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose.

Search algorithms will need to include some kind of perturbation so as to simulate serendipity.

As Doctorow wrote in Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, of what use is a shelf full of books that have already been read? The one’s unread are the ones full of potential, of the undiscovered.

I have begun to “crowdsource” the on campus book storage. This, of course, will not allow me the grace of serendipity, but it will keep treasured older volumes near at hand. I’m having visions of the Borges short story, The Library of Babel, overlayed with Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose.

Search algorithms will need to include some kind of perturbation so as to simulate serendipity.

As Doctorow wrote in Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, of what use is a shelf full of books that have already been read? The one’s unread are the ones full of potential, of the undiscovered.

April 27, 2011 While university libraries have taken on numerous functions over the years, such as serving as places for students to study, meet with others, and interact with technology, one component that has always been central to their mission has been housing books.
But plans at the University of Denver to permanently move four-fifths of the Penrose Library’s holdings to an off-campus storage facility and renovate the building into an “Academic Commons,” with more seating, group space, and technological capacity, could make the university a flashpoint in the debate about whether the traditional function of storing books needs to happen on campus.
“We are not alone in this trend of increasing central campus space for study, services and student learning and decreasing central campus space for legacy collections,” said Nancy Allen, dean and director of Penrose Library, in an e-mail statement.
The proposed change has raised the ire of some arts, humanities, and social science professors who say that, while impressive, technology hasn’t yet replaced a good old-fashioned trip through the stacks. They argue that the administration dropped the changes in their laps without consulting them and that it will harm their main mode of research.
“You would never ask a scientist to get rid of his or her laboratory,” said Annabeth Headrick, an art history professor. “But that’s exactly what’s being done to us.”

April 27, 2011 While university libraries have taken on numerous functions over the years, such as serving as places for students to study, meet with others, and interact with technology, one component that has always been central to their mission has been housing books.
But plans at the University of Denver to permanently move four-fifths of the Penrose Library’s holdings to an off-campus storage facility and renovate the building into an “Academic Commons,” with more seating, group space, and technological capacity, could make the university a flashpoint in the debate about whether the traditional function of storing books needs to happen on campus.
“We are not alone in this trend of increasing central campus space for study, services and student learning and decreasing central campus space for legacy collections,” said Nancy Allen, dean and director of Penrose Library, in an e-mail statement.
The proposed change has raised the ire of some arts, humanities, and social science professors who say that, while impressive, technology hasn’t yet replaced a good old-fashioned trip through the stacks. They argue that the administration dropped the changes in their laps without consulting them and that it will harm their main mode of research.
“You would never ask a scientist to get rid of his or her laboratory,” said Annabeth Headrick, an art history professor. “But that’s exactly what’s being done to us.”